Over the holidays someone showed up at work with what I thought was potato candy. I was so excited because I hadn't had this treat in years and years. It turned out that hers was made from cream cheese, not potatoes at all.
My grandmother used to make me potato candy. What you did was mash some potatoes, mix in powdered sugar to make a dough, roll it out, spread on peanut butter, roll it into a spiral and slice.
This stuff was so good, not too sweet, like the cream cheese variety.
I started thinking about this today while cooking dinner and looking out the window at the fresh falling snow. When I was little snow was always an extra special treat because not only was school canceled but my mom would make us snow ice cream.
I'm sure with all of the crap in the air these days that snow ice cream is a lost art. My mom's was incredible.
What about you? Any odd or longed for foods from your childhood?
hmmm, my mom wasn't a great cook. And, she abhored sweets. As a high school student I used to come home from school, melt some butter in a sauce pan, add brown sugar (hell, whatever sugar we had in the house), and rolled oats. If we had any kind of cocoa, in it would go. Sometimes I'd add peanut butter. We (my siblings made similar treats) called it muck.
I've never heard about potato candy or snow ice cream. We make a snow treat by pouring maple syrup on it. I've never gotten the techinique for that down.
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boomerang
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Tue 6 Jan, 2004 08:46 pm
Oh my, little k. Did your mom know that you were making muck while she was away?
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littlek
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Tue 6 Jan, 2004 09:17 pm
I think she eventually knew. I thought of it as cookie dough. But, I'd eat like 2 cups of the goop in one sitting. 2 tablespoons of the stuff would make me gag now.
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Ceili
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Wed 7 Jan, 2004 12:05 am
My granny was a tiny woman, 4'10' maybe, she used to make these tiny pork sausages, and you could see where her wee little fingers left ridges in the sides, anyway...
I remember them being amazing, I hardly eat meat of anykind now, but I love to have one just once more.
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boomerang
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Wed 7 Jan, 2004 06:56 am
Your mom sounds like she was a bit of a health nut, little k. Is that where you come by your vegetarianism?
That's cool, Ceili. I can just see this little tiny person making these little tiny foods.
My grandmother was a little tiny person too. She only wore mocassins that she had hand made for her. I still have a pair of these shoes and I'm always amazed at how small they are - they're like children's shoes.
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Phoenix32890
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Wed 7 Jan, 2004 07:21 am
I used to melt sugar in a pan, and add peanuts. Instant peanut brittle. It tasted great, and my dentist loved the whole idea.
Also, I made a mean pan of Rice Krispies marshmallow squares!
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jespah
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Wed 7 Jan, 2004 08:29 am
Ah, my grandmother's knishes. Mom, my aunt and cousin and I still can't figure out how to make 'em exactly the way Baba did.
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boomerang
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Wed 7 Jan, 2004 09:01 am
That's a fun peanut brittle recipie, Phoenix. Did your dentist love it for financial reasons?
I haven't had Rice Krispie squares in forever and they remind me of another childhood favorite: those no bake chocolate, peanut butter oatmeal blobs!
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boomerang
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Wed 7 Jan, 2004 09:03 am
Hi jespah! What is a knishe?
I think her secret ingredient was grandmotherlyness. Things always taste better when made by your own grandmother.
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jespah
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Wed 7 Jan, 2004 11:09 am
A knishe is, eh, how to describe it? The kind you get in a deli usually aren't authentic (they tend to look like pillows).
The kind Baba made were, uh, grated potatoes placed inside a small cylinder (for lack of a better word) of dough. They were peppery and there was onion in them and the secret was grandmotherliness and probably the Brooklyn water, too. :-D
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Phoenix32890
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Wed 7 Jan, 2004 11:17 am
My Nana made the most fabulous mandelbrot and apple strudel (from scratch). A number of times, when I asked her for the recipes, her stock answer was, "Don't worry- you want some.......I'll make it for you".
Now her recipes are gone forever. I have NEVER had mandelbrot like my Nanas'!
Jes- Did you ever go to Mrs. Stahl's Knishes on Brighton Beach Avenue? They were pretty darn good!
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jespah
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Wed 7 Jan, 2004 11:22 am
Yeah, Phoenix, sitting here, what is it? 31 years after her death - can it really be that long? I can still taste the knishes. I'm the only one of her granddaughters and great-nieces who looks like Baba and right now I can feel a connection.
Makes me wanna cry a little.
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boomerang
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Thu 8 Jan, 2004 07:36 am
There is nothing like food to bring on nostalgia, is there?
I felt that connection as I watched the snow falling and it inspired me to start this thread.
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littlek
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Thu 8 Jan, 2004 08:01 am
Boomer, my mother was on a perpetual diet, so we ate low-fat too. And she was against sugar beacuse it was the thing to do in the seventies with your kids. I guess I'm glad, she really set us up well for life.
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Wy
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Fri 9 Jan, 2004 02:22 am
I craved salt more than sugar. I'd take a jar lid and fill it with salt, wet it and hide it somewhere until it dried into a cake. Then me, a half-dozen apples from the tree, my book and my little salt lick would go climb a tree for a couple hours...
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boomerang
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Sat 10 Jan, 2004 08:01 pm
I'm sure it did serve you well little k - despite the cups of muck.
People think I'm crazy for salting my apples! Making your own salt licks is much odder than my habit. Overall, with the apples it probably wasn't a bad snack.
Do you still crave salt like that, Wy?
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Ceili
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Sat 10 Jan, 2004 08:15 pm
I visited Ireland when I was very young. One day I went to my great aunt Rose's home. Her house smelled exactly like my mom's kitchen, specifically my mom's homemade bread. I asked auntie rose if my mom had come over and made her some bread. She laughed and said, "Child, who do you thing taught your mammie to make it?"
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Wy
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Sat 10 Jan, 2004 08:49 pm
I'd still rather have salt than sugar, yes, but I don't make salt blocks anymore. And I'd no more eat an apple without salt than I would a tomato...
I heard once that the salt craving is related to how much morning sickness your mother suffered while carrying you. I asked my mom about it and she said, "oh, not much -- but if anybody said the word "coffee" during the first six months, I threw up."
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